New Earth-like planet discovered

[Lamp]

Sorry if this is a repost

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6589157.stm

Of all the billions upon billions of gallaxies, which themselves contain billions of stars, there are billions of planets, of which millions (if not billions) must have factors conducive to life similar to that of our own planet.

I am personally without a doubt that alien life exists out there. Whether we'll discover any is another question.

The distances in space are gigantic, measured in light years. Human life span is pitifully short. We'd have to invent some fantastically powerful and fast engines to even stand a chance of traversing cosmic distances before we die from old age.

An object a million light years away can be reached in a million years if you're travelling at light speed. According to Einstein its impossible for a rocket to approach light speed as you'd need an infinite amount of energy. The infinite mass would be a pain too.

For arguments sake, lets assume you build your Lego spaceship and it can hit light speed. Its going to take you a million years to reach it. Better have a few CD's and some big books. We'll assume there's cryogenic technology. I can't envisage human tissue - even with cryotechnology pushed to the max - surviving intact a million years.

Lets say you do survive. Whats the first thing you do when you wake up from a million years of cryosleep ? You'll want a cigarette. Bugger. The PC lobby have banned smoking on intergalactic journeys. What a gyp.

 

[Overdriven]

I actually read this today (and a bit of information on it yesterday) it's around 20 lightyears away (Hopefully scientists are working on an engine which can go around the speed of light, or hopefully faster - would be cool) - If you can travle at the speed of light, it'll take 20 years to actually get there.

EDIT:

The fact they've seen the surface/know what's on it will mean they'll speed up development and try to learn more, a bit obv.

 

[Thadius]

I actually read this today (and a bit of information on it yesterday) it's around 20 lightyears away (Hopefully scientists are working on an engine which can go around the speed of light, or hopefully faster - would be cool) - If you can travle at the speed of light, it'll take 20 years to actually get there.

EDIT:

The fact they've seen the surface/know what's on it will mean they'll speed up development and try to learn more, a bit obv.

I bet its a parellel world,of Earth, except everybody is the opposite sex!

Man, how could would it be to do a female version fo your self ?:<

 

[Eruptix]

there is no doubt in my mind that we will someday manage to travel beyond lightningspeed and travel to distant planets

neither is there doubt in my mind that extra terrestial lifeforms have already taken that step and visited our planet from galaxies far far away

 

[Jeremiah]

I've always thought that hitting light speed wouldnt be too hard since you would (theoretically) have very little resistance in the opposite direction (i.e. once you hit light speed, you could switch the engines off and continue at the speed for ever!)

But a ship having that kind of speed capability would obviously need some kind of mammoth braking system. To quote Red Dwarf, "The stopping distance would be we months, and the thinking time one week"

 

[old.Tohtori]

The problem with that planet is that it's on a fixed orbit(or some other tech mumbo) and one side is always facing the sun

 

[Bugz]

How would we be able to travel at the speed of light? We would have to somewhat fool physics into us having no mass since the speed of light is only achieveable if you have no mass (einstein's theory I believe)

Then when you reach speed of light, your mass is infinite and so your energy would have to be infinite.

I just can't see it happening physically.

Also remember the fastest we've gone so far is like 7 x 10 to the minus 6 of the speed of light.

 

[ilaya]

yueah in theory u could travel at any speed u wished given enough fuel as there's no resistance out there.. however, you'd also need great big computers campable of driving around space dust... so it aint really a speed problem itself its all about navigation.

people who think life doesnt exist anywhere else in an ever expanding universe are kidding themelves.. if there's life here on this rock you can bet there will be somewhere else, almost infinite universe = almost infinite possibility

what is more worrying tho is the fact that we are drifting away from all the other stars and galaxies at a staggering rate, so sooner we get there the better tbh. there may come a point when we just arent able to reach other systems because of our drifting away...

 

[Sparda]

Also people have to remeber we on evolved on this planet about 600,000 years ago. Life started on Earth about 4 billion years ago. Now imagin another planet somewhere that when it first started evolving life, that life actualy managed to survive and become dominent. Unlike Earth where it pretty much got wasted a few times over.
It makes us humans look like the primordial slime, as they have at least 4 billion years of evolution over us. And Im sure anyone in that time can get Einstein's laws and pretty much tell him where to shove em.

We dont need to invent light speed travel, we could just be shown how its done.

 

[Coldbeard]

Very interesting read, I have no doubts about there being other lifeforms in space. Hope that we can get more knowledge about things like this in the forthcoming years! I don't think man will take any huge steps towards other galaxies / solar constellations in my lifetime though

 

[Glacier]

Liddul Green Mens Lol!

 

[Glacier]

On a more serious note.

I doubt that it's possible for us to reach the kind of technology to hit lightspeed, atleast not with the way habitants of Tellus are progressing atm ;b

But on the other hand, who says we have to be the ones making the discovery, we may already be under surveilance! (gets all paranoid)

 

[Infanity]

The problem with that planet is that it's on a fixed orbit(or some other tech mumbo) and one side is always facing the sun

That would be how you get your races.
Some are white (moon side)
some are black (tanned from sun)

!!!!!

 

[DocWolfe]

With quantum physics its possible

 

[Infanity]

In my supermarket today Seems they're miles away but dont have a tesco

 

[- English -]

there is no doubt in my mind that we will someday manage to travel beyond lightningspeed and travel to distant planets

neither is there doubt in my mind that extra terrestial lifeforms have already taken that step and visited our planet from galaxies far far away

they are called ze french

 

[Levin]

The problem with that planet is that it's on a fixed orbit(or some other tech mumbo) and one side is always facing the sun

That might be a good thing though. I read somewhere that since the planet's star is a red dwarf, the planet's orbit around it makes the temperature changes on any one given spot on the planet rather big. With one side always facing the sun, however, you'd have a belt shaped zone across the globe that just might be habitable temperaturewise.

Of course, that's not taking into account the storms that would probably ravage the planet surface with temperature differences like that.

 

[Basic_X]

Im sure the human race will find a way to travel over lightyears quite fast. if we cant hit lightspeed ourselvs i belive we will find alternatives (travel in subspace. black holes - that kinda thing. saw it in the newpaper last year i think). i wouldnt mind travel to another planet (unless its something Alien or Pitch Black thing ). a pioneer of the human race on another planet! woo

 

[Calaen]

It is all very interesting.

 

[DocWolfe]

I doubt someone in the middle ages beleived that nuclear fission was possible... now look where we are, and that was only ~700 years ago

 

[Overdriven]

With quantum physics its possible

As I mentioned, knowing that there's something (maybe) on that planet AND that it may be habitable. People are going to be working alot harder on finding a way to get there. Shit we saw on stuff like Star Wars/Trek will eventually happen, but not for a long time.

I admit, I've love to be able to see what's on that planet, but it's not ever going to happen. Few hundred years I'm guessing.

 

[Himse]

Ok, i'm personally thinking it might be possible in 100-200 years or so if were still here.
Check this link out:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/...2251.stm&bbwm=1&bbram=1&nbwm=1&nbram=1&news=1

If were already developing things like this, im sure scientists will be able to invent some way to travel at the speed of light!

 

[Dahakon]

Basic physics says that for an object with mass to travel at light speed (let alone faster) it needs infinite energy, so I don't see how we can do it, unless worm holes become a workable way of doing it.

One thing I don't get is why its so important to find "earth like" planets in the search for ET life, I mean there are enough un-"earth like" places on Earth that support life, I don't see why a different planet with different evolutional pressures would end up making "earth like" life.

 

[Lollie]

Im sure the human race will find a way to travel over lightyears quite fast. if we cant hit lightspeed ourselvs i belive we will find alternatives (travel in subspace. black holes - that kinda thing. saw it in the newpaper last year i think). i wouldnt mind travel to another planet (unless its something Alien or Pitch Black thing ). a pioneer of the human race on another planet! woo

Not if the health and safety commision has anything to do with it, imagine all the hi-vis jackets and hard hats needed

 

[liloe]

The first thing that came to my mind, lol, where's the care-police when you need them =) I mean seriously, why should I care for some planet that is 20.3 lightyears away from us, meaning no human being will ever set foot there. I see this from two angles.

On the one side, I doubt humanity will even live long enough to finish such projects, cause at the current speed at which we're destroying our own planet, there won't be much left in a "few" years.

On the other side it's physically impossible to travel at the speed of light. This alone is not a problem though. I read a pretty interesting article about bending space. We all know that it's possible to bend stuff with enough mass. Now if that mass is getting bigger, you can even bend space itself. I don't think I have to tell you how much energy that needs, do I? =)

There's also something else. What advantage does it have to set foot on another planet, so we can destroy it aswell? And don't bullshit me, nobody will believe if you say that we can leave something unharmed. Humanity is permanently destroying stuff and it has always been like that. Tbh, if I was some alien being knowing about the earth, I'd shoot every human coming near to my planet or take him as prisoner

Also think about all the money wasted for such a little return. That whole space thing is really nice, as we're all having lots of profits from it, but let's just keep it to our planet, no need to send some useless piece of metal to Mars for a few billions. There's a lot of other interesting research to be done.

 

[tris-]

Basic physics says that for an object with mass to travel at light speed (let alone faster) it needs infinite energy, so I don't see how we can do it, unless worm holes become a workable way of doing it.

One thing I don't get is why its so important to find "earth like" planets in the search for ET life, I mean there are enough un-"earth like" places on Earth that support life, I don't see why a different planet with different evolutional pressures would end up making "earth like" life.

thats what i always thought. i dont understand why its assumed that to live, a life form must be carbon based, have oxygen, light and water.

 

[Lamp]

We dont need to invent light speed travel, we could just be shown how its done.

All very nice, but you're assuming a peaceful and friendly alien encounter. They could quite as easily do a War of the Worlds, or just teleport the entire planet into the middle of the Sun or the nearest black hole...

 

[tris-]

the nearest black hole...

that would be the leetest way to die i think.

 

[Lamp]

The problem with that planet is that it's on a fixed orbit(or some other tech mumbo) and one side is always facing the sun

The other thing - is that the planet is only 6 million miles from the sun. Earth is 93 million miles from the sun. Assuming we'd not be blinded by the sun (maybe the indigenous life forms have no eyes), then we'd probably all live for about 3 hours before the intense solar radiation kills us from cancer. The radiation / cancer thing is a big minus.

All the astronauts that have ever gone into space will have received a high dose of solar and other particle radiation. The NASA astronauts themselves admit to "seeing" fast light particles flash across their vision. Radiation particles easily penetrate both the space craft and suits.

I am convinced that anyone who leaves the protection of earth's atmosphere and enters outer spaces is getting dangerously high levels of radiation exposures.

Getting very close to conspiracy theories here. Did NASA deliberately fake the results of post space flight radiation exposure tests ? Were any tests carried out ? Would you believe anything you read whatever NASA says ?

 

[Thadius]

Im sure the human race will find a way to travel over lightyears quite fast. if we cant hit lightspeed ourselvs i belive we will find alternatives (travel in subspace. black holes - that kinda thing. saw it in the newpaper last year i think). i wouldnt mind travel to another planet (unless its something Alien or Pitch Black thing ). a pioneer of the human race on another planet! woo

Hell yea, I could be the first human on a planet and breed with the fit, big breasted Amazonian women and after much Snusnu, a evil superrace will be born!!

Then come and pwn Earth with my army of minions! :<